The Parting of Pierre

by Annette Moncheri

  The Parting of Pierre

  Madame’s Murder Mysteries: No. 4

  Annette Moncheri

  Contents

  A Note to the Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

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  A Note to the Reader

  Bonne année, dear Reader! And merci for picking up this little book!

  I wanted to let you know—at the end of this book, you’ll find an offer to receive the prequel to this series for FREE if you subscribe to my mailing list at my website. Look for the link at the back of the book!

  À bientôt!

  ~Annette

  1

  Dear delicious Reader! I cannot wait to tell you this story, which has gambling, gunshots, lies, more lies, an adorable little dog named Caramel, a villainous scheme by a group of old ladies, and, of course, murder. Not that I mean to tease you... the teasing in this story comes at the end, and it's not done by me.

  We shall begin like this: I rose at six in the evening, as always, and soon began my day’s first rounds of my maison, Le Chat Rose, in the broad carpeted hallway above, glancing in any open doors and speaking to any of my ladies who were at loose ends.

  In the present case, Anaelle de Gall was touching up her makeup at a little table while she complained bitterly about her sister to Melodie Bouvier, who lay on Anaelle’s duvet with an arm propping up her head.

  “Salut, ladies. Don’t forget you’ve a living to earn downstairs,” I said sweetly.

  Anaelle stopped just short of scowling at me. Always sour, that one. “I’ll be out in a moment, Madame,” she said while she applied rouge. Melodie meanwhile picked herself up and went out with a kiss on my cheek.

  Dorothée, our septuagenarian “girl,” was in her room, but the door was closed. Within, I could just barely hear murmured words of adoration. Her latest lover, a mere sexagenarian—though certainly in the latter half of the decade—was madly in love with her and, according to Dorothée’s reports, always promising her the world. When they were dining together or playing chess in the drawing room, their sweet words and shy blushes brought me no end of joy—especially given the tragic ending to her last love affair.

  The other rooms were unoccupied, which struck me as peculiar at this hour, and so I took the broad, sweeping front staircase down to the ground floor and the massive drawing room. There I discovered the reason for the empty rooms upstairs—an amazed crowd gathered around a street performer in hobo attire and a painted face who was juggling half a dozen knives—all of which were on fire. Happily, my drawing room had a high ceiling.

  I waited on the stairs for him to complete his performance, and I permitted him a hearty round of applause, but then I came down and took him by the elbow before he began to pass his rumpled hat. I pressed just enough crisp banknotes into his hand to be rid of him, but not enough to encourage him to return, and firmly escorted him to the door. “Monsieur, I have no objection to your performing in my courtyard, but not in the house, please!” I closed the door on his protests.

  Monsieur Georges appeared at my side as I came back into the room. “Very sorry, Madame, I was distracted by a telephone call. Mademoiselle de Gall’s sister again.”

  “Oh, I do hope they bring their feud to a close eventually,” I said. “Although it seems unlikely, given that we’re on year four of it.”

  Just then, Monsieur l’Agent Clement Carré waved to me from his table, where he had both feet up on a cushioned ottoman and a plate of le goûter balanced precariously on his round belly. He was a massive fan of brothels in general and Le Chat Rose in particular, though less for the ladies—he rarely indulged, and never while on duty—and more for the food and champagne.

  I went to him. “Bonsoir, Monsieur, what may we do for you?”

  “Bonsoir, Madame.” He beckoned me closer and spoke conspiratorially. “I just thought you might like to know that that juggler’s been known to walk out with a purse or two under those big baggy clothes. It’s a trick of his. You ought not to let him in, in the future.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur,” I said. “I’ll relay that to the staff.”

  I took another look around. Everything seemed well enough in the huge and opulently furnished room with its many tables, overstuffed armchairs, tapestries, carpets, paintings, and draperies. The fire was crackling pleasantly in the large fireplace on the east wall, the pianist was valiantly charging through a difficult Beethoven piece, the latest profitaroles and goat cheese tartlets were making their way through the crowd on trays, and customers and ladies were pairing off and heading upstairs now that the juggler had gone.

  Ah—I saw now the entrance of Pierre Fabron, who was a regular customer of Mireille Patrix. He staggered as he walked, and his cheeks gleamed red, telling me he’d had a few drinks before coming over, as he often did. I signaled him that I’d fetch Mireille for him, and then headed to the very back room, where I knew Mireille would be entertaining a collection of gentlemen all by herself.

  Oh, not in the way that one might expect in a brothel—I meant at a game of bouillotte, which is cards.

  This gambling room was a relatively new thing—only in operation a few weeks—that Mireille had begged and pleaded for until I capitulated. She was far too fond of cards, but she insisted that our customers would love it, and I had found her to be right. But I had rules. Important rules.

  As I swept in, everyone’s gazes lifted to mine and then away in a way I thought distinctly guilty. But a quick glance around revealed only cordial people, chairs, gas lamps, and cards in hands. On the table rested glasses of champagne accompanied by—and this was the important part—aluminum-bronze and nickel coins.

  “Gentlemen,” I said cheerily, “I’m so pleased to see not a single banknote in evidence.”

  “Madame,” said one of the gentlemen in a pleasant tone, as he mopped his forehead with a saturated handkerchief. “Mademoiselle Mireille told us your rules, have no fear. Nothing above a two-franc coin, she told us.”

  “I’ve made it perfectly clear,” Mireille chimed in, her small, beady eyes glittering in the lamplight. “And of course we understand how you wouldn’t want to risk any heightened emotions here at your table.”

  “We all do,” assured a young man with a long, lean face like a horse—a Monsieur Talbot, a regular visitor. “It’s very wise, to prohibit higher stakes. Otherwise, tempers flare. And we wouldn’t want that.”

  A sigh came from a middle-aged man with a bow tie and bushy, angular eyebrows. His hand was discarded on the table. His face was flushed and his thin lips turned down. This was Monsieur Gabriel Guillot, another regular. He usually arrived at odds with Mireille, but clearly, he had a new target tonight, as his eyes bored through Monsieur Talbot opposite him.

  “No, we wouldn’t want tempers to flare,” said another man eagerly, one with no hair at all on the top of his head and a roll of pudge around his neck that, together, made him look like a fat baby. “We like a friendly game. With low stakes.” He showed his teeth in what was probably meant to be a smile but felt unconvincing.

  “I’m glad to know that you all understand so completely,” I said lightly.

  I’ve never seen a group of people so eager to display their understanding of a fact—have you, dea
r Reader?

  “Well, do carry on,” I said with a smile. “Except Mireille—Pierre is here for you.”

  “I’ll be right there,” she said.

  I left the room resolving that I would talk with Mireille later about the gambling. You see, I’m not a fool—not that I think you need reminding, but I suspected perhaps Mireille did. Something was clearly going on here, even if I couldn’t prove it yet.

  I had just reached the end of the wide hallway that led back to the drawing room when Monsieur Guillot caught up to me, as apparently he’d followed me out of the gambling den. His thin lips pressed together, making them even thinner, and his bushy, angular eyebrows gathered over his green eyes.

  “Madame,” he began in a tone that was civil but also aggrieved, “I wish you would speak to your girl Mireille.”

  “Oh?” I asked. I didn’t have to think long on what might be wrong. “About how she directs the dealer, isn’t it?” Mireille had told me all about it at great length, her small, dark eyes glittering in agitation. They’d had a major falling out—and in fact, Mireille had been Monsieur Guillot’s chosen lady until then. Now he went to Anaelle de Gall’s bedroom, a fact that irritated Mireille to no end.

  His mouth opened a moment, then snapped shut. “She’s spoken of this to you. Behind my back.”

  Oh dear.

  I lay a hand on his shoulder in a gesture I hoped was steadying and comforting. “She expressed her concerns to me that a guest was unhappy. We want to do our best to keep our guests as happy as possible.”

  “In that case, why have you done nothing about it?” His shoulder under my hand felt so tense and ill at ease that I removed it. “She continues to direct the dealer in such a way as to improve either her own odds or the house odds. It’s patently unfair. No casino would allow such a thing, and neither should you.”

  “Of course not,” I said, leaving his mouth to hang open again. I do like to agree with angry people—it confuses them. In any case, he was right. “I have spoken with her about it. But you tell me that she’s still doing it?”

  “Yes, she’s still doing it. And it’s an outrage. I won’t have it.” His face began to turn pink.

  Mireille brushed by us just then on her way to meet with her customer, and in passing, she gave me a look with raised eyebrows. I gave her a slight shake of the head to indicate not all was well, but I kept my attention on Monsieur Guillot. “I will speak with her again, but I’ll also go a step beyond that. I’ll tell our dealers not to accept instruction from any of the ladies or staff. Will that satisfy you?”

  He straightened his jacket, and his face relaxed slightly. “We’ll see what difference it makes.” He nodded just slightly before he turned and went back to the gambling room.

  Oh, the little dramas I have to contend with at my maison! It seems to me that people don’t change, even as the decades pass and fashions of long hair and full skirts give way to bobs and feathered headdresses. No, the window dressing changes, but human nature is set in its ways.

  Monsieur Georges found me at that moment to inform me that the photographer, Oates Pichette, had arrived for the publicity shots for Le Guide Rose, which was the booklet advertising all the maisons tolerées, for sale for 5 francs. It held all the addresses and phone numbers as well as advertisements both for the brothels and for any other sort of advertiser who wanted to be featured, from Gauloises to the expensive stockings that were an excellent gift for one's lady of the night. My maison always took out a half-page advertisement with pictures of the ladies.

  I went into the drawing room to find Oates Pichette tossing back his dark locks and liberally bestowing compliments while he snapped photos of my mesdames lounging provocatively on settees or on the grand piano.

  The ladies were naked but carefully draped in lengths of silk that obscured the most important parts—I suppose it’s the photographer’s job to find an interesting look each year. He’d requested the silks weeks ago so that I would have time to order them from the Orient. The pianist was enjoying the show, looking over the tops of his glasses when he wasn’t looking down at the sheet music.

  The assembled customers, tipsy on complimentary champagne and sated by complimentary pastries and desserts, cheered on the ladies as they posed. Now the ladies were kissing each other—and I don’t mean cheek kisses—while the gentlemen hooted and applauded. I let them have their fun—it was good for business.

  I leaned back against the bar on the far side of the room and watched for a little while, smiling at their antics and their innocent enjoyment of their own youth and beauty. And then suddenly a shrill scream of terror erupted from upstairs.

  2

  The scream came again and again, as if some horrible thing were happening over and over.

  I wanted to transform into a bat and fly up there, but the many guests and other ladies in the drawing room made that impossible. I scurried up in my high heels, holding my skirts so I wouldn’t trip, while gasps and murmurs arose from the crowd below. “Don’t panic!” I called down to them. “I’m sure it will all be fine avec à-propos!” But as I hurried, I had awful visions of one of my guests unhinged and attacking with a knife, or beating one of my mesdames with his fists. Or perhaps it was a rat, or a spider. I could hope for only a very large spider.

  I rushed down the large hallway as doors opened on either side with perplexed mesdames and their customers staring out in alarm. “Stay in your rooms, ladies!” I commanded. “Doors locked!”

  I narrowed down the direction of the sound—the screams came from the bathing room, where the large copper bathtub was presently in use by Mireille and her gentleman of the hour.

  I tore around the corner and flung open the door. Mireille stood in just a negligee, facing me, several feet from the tub, her hands on her face. She drew breath for another scream.

  “Silence, Mireille!” I commanded as I drew up to her.

  Her gaze was so intent on the tub that I followed it. Fully submerged in the large copper tub was a gentleman. His undressed body was plain to see in the clear water, and it did not move. His eyes were open and unmoving, and no bubbles of air emerged from his nostrils or lips.

  Dread constricted my chest. I felt compelled to go to him. I reached one hand into the warm water and shook him lightly by the shoulder, which felt pliable—but he did not respond. He was newly dead. I saw no marks on him and no sign of a struggle.

  “Go on out of the room, Mireille,” I said breathlessly as I wiped my hand on one of the nearby towels.

  She remained unmoving. I went to her and took her by the shoulders. I shook her lightly, but she was still transfixed by the sight of the dead man. I turned her chin toward me until her gaze followed. “Mireille. Go on out of the room and get yourself dressed.”

  She went without a sound.

  The night butler, Monsieur Georges, lingered in the hallway, visible through the open door, and I gestured to him to approach.

  “The police, Madame?” he asked.

  “Yes, please. And send Madame Gagnon to check on Mireille and to keep her quiet about what’s happened. Tell the customers it’s nothing for them to be concerned about.”

  He bowed and went out.

  “Any reason to suspect foul play, Madame?” Monsieur Carré inquired shortly afterward. He studied the scene, his face gray-tinged and his lips shifting as if he felt queasy. I’d never seen this color on him before. “I can see that there’s water here on the platform.”

  “Pierre was splashing water at me, before it happened,” Mireille said unsteadily. Monsieur Carré had sent for her. “Fooling around. He was very drunk. So drunk I didn’t think he’d actually be up for the act, if you know what I mean.”

  “Ah,” Carré replied, just as unsteadily. He put his back completely to the man in the tub. “And you didn’t see what happened to him?” His heart wasn’t in the questioning, you could tell.

  “No… I had gone into my room to get undressed and pin up my hair. I had no reason to think there wa
s any problem until I came in, and then I saw…” She gestured unhappily at the tub.

  “Well, then. Any other information you can supply?”

  Mireille and I exchanged glances and shrugs. “I hardly knew him, Monsieur Carré,” I said. “He was a relatively infrequent customer. Only visited when his wife was out of town.”

  “Good, good,” he said distractedly. “Then I shall summon some of the other men to come remove the body and we shall… ah… Well, I’ll make my report, and I think that will be the end of it. A simple d— ah, death by… yes, in water.”

  He give us a green-tinged half-smile and turned to leave, and I caught his sleeve.

  “Monsieur Carré, I hardly think the case is closed,” I said. “Why would a man simply drown in a tub like that? He’s not a small child that might have slipped. There’s no sign of injury.”

  “Well, he was very drunk, as Mademoiselle Patrix says,” he said. “He may have simply passed out and slipped down into the… water.”

  And again he made a beeline for the door. At the threshold, he half-turned to say, “We’ll be in touch if we need to be… and God willing, we won’t.” And he disappeared.

  I turned to Mireille in puzzlement. “That was very unlike him.”

  She nodded, looking equally puzzled, but then dissolved into tears again.

  I remained upstairs until the other policemen arrived to wrap up and remove the body, which they did discreetly through the back stairwell and the back entrance. Needless to say, I closed the bathing room for the night and left the day staff strict instructions on how it was to be sanitized before it was used again. I checked on Mireille once more, to whom of course I had given the rest of the night off, and then went downstairs to ensure all was well.